This application relates generally to financial reporting information. More specifically, this application relates to methods and systems for consolidating financial reporting information.
Many businesses currently offer a diverse selection of products and/or services to their customers. This diversity may provide a number of advantages, such as allowing the businesses to promote that diversity and thereby attract greater numbers of customers, and to provide an enhanced level of service to those customers. These advantages sometimes come at a cost, however, because the diversity of products and services itself causes compartmentalization of tasks. This may require, for example, the performance of additional processes and tasks.
This may be illustrated, for example, with the case of reporting financial information to customers. In the case where the business is a financial institution, such as a bank, the diverse array of services offered may include, for example, savings- and checking-account services, trust-management services, mortgage services, loan services including car-loan and home-equity-loan services, credit-card services, etc. As part of each of the administration of each of these services, financial information for the service may be reported to the customer. Throughout a month, a customer may thus receive a variety of pieces of financial reporting information, all originating from services administered by the same financial institution. For example, the customer may one day receive a savings-account statement summarizing deposits, withdrawals, and interest payments to the savings account throughout the month. On another day, the customer may receive a checking-account statement summarizing similar information, and also including canceled checks for that month. On a separate day, the customer may receive a mortgage statement indicating the amount of the most recently received payment, how it was distributed among principal, interest, and escrow contributions. Later in the month, the customer may receive a credit-card statement summarizing payments received and purchases made during the month. Still other types of financial reporting information may be received depending on the number and type of accounts held by the customer with the financial institution. Moreover, each such distribution may include various types of inserts, advertising, etc.
The result of such multiple distributions is at least twofold. The customer is frustrated by receiving a relatively large volume of information, even though he was attracted to the financial institution by the simplicity of keeping multiple accounts with the same institution. In addition, the financial institution is subject to the additional expense associated with multiple distributions, including both internal costs of administering each distribution and external costs related to postage and the like.
There is accordingly a need in the art for methods and systems that permit consolidation of such information, particularly of financial reporting information.